Unforgiving
by Eliza4892
Summary: Claire confronts Desmond about Charlie's death.


He can feel her watching him. Claire's none too subtle about it either. It doesn't matter if she's sitting in her tent, playing with Aaron, or talking to Jack (he's been coming by her more and more often, like he feels responsible for letting Charlie go on this suicide mission, and then not getting them rescued), she'll still glance over at him, watching him as he sits on the shore, or as he tries to read that smudged paper that he doubts he'll ever make sense of.

Charlie trusted him with that letter, and being that it was the last thing that he left, being that he had waited until he was sure he was going to die, Desmond knows it has to be important. It's important and yet, just like Charlie, it got lost at sea, ink smearing and bleeding into the water. He has to live with that. And he has to live with this too, the constant feel of her eyes boring into his back, her suspicions that he had something to do with all of this, with Charlie's death.

Except they aren't just suspicions, and he knows that, and she knows that as well to a degree. It doesn't take much to figure out that he had something to do with Charlie's death. Desmond had volunteered to go with him on the mission, and he'd owned up to having flashes of Charlie dying several times. It's fairly obvious, so much so that he's surprised there hasn't been any backlash from before now.

Tonight though, she doesn't watch so much as follow him back to his tent after everyone's finished dinner, and broken apart into small groups. He knows she's on his heels, despite how quiet she is, footsteps barely detectable in the sand. It's more the look he saw in her eyes when he glanced over at her during dinner, her face lit by the firelight, hands wrung in her lap, and somehow he knew that confrontation was on the horizon.

"You knew didn't you?" She begins, before she's even fully entered his tent. His back is turned to her, and he stiffens in response to this onslaught that he knows is coming. "You knew that he wasn't coming back, and you let him go anyways!"

He doesn't bother to defend himself when she pauses, almost to let him talk, to give him a chance to say his side. In reality there's nothing he can say, because she's right, and lying hasn't gotten him anywhere in a long time. Better to just get this over with.

"Didn't you?" Claire expects him to answer, that part is clear.

Slowly he turns to face her. Her eyes are wild and pleading, her lips set in a tight line, looking like she would cry out if she wasn't so angry. "Yes, I did," he tells her. Admitting is the first step.

She slaps him. Hard, and fast, and it'll leave a red mark in the shape of a hand for a few hours, but it isn't permanent (and death is). "You bastard! You knew, and you didn't tell anyone."

"Who was I supposed to tell?" He surprises himself, both with his reply (he wasn't going to argue with her, he was just going to let her get it out, it was better that way), and with the sound of his own voice. Too full of emotion, and quite a bit louder than he'd intended. "Who would've believed me?"

"I would've. I would've believed you. You knew, and you didn't tell me, and I never got to say goodbye." And that's what it all comes down doesn't it? The feeling as though she hadn't said all she'd needed to say, the unresolved that now never would be resolved. It eats away at people. It's eating away at her, and she needs someone to blame. He's as good a candidate as any.

"I didn't mean for him to die. I saw it, and I was going to – I was going to save him again, but he wouldn't have any of it. I told him what I saw, and he decided to stop fighting, to just give up. And for that I'm sorry. I should've never told him." He's rambling he knows, but it wasn't like he had a speech prepared or something. This wasn't his everyday conversation.

She frowns suddenly, her eyes widening. "What did you see?"

"It's not important." He looks away, realizing his misstep. Telling her will only make this worse.

"No, it is. You said that whatever it was made him change his mind, made him give up. Now what did you see?" He doesn't answer her. "No, you aren't getting out of this. You have to tell me, you owe me that much."

"I told him I saw rescue." He tells her, after a long pause. "I told him I saw you and Aaron getting on the rescue helicopter, and the only way for that to happen was for him to…and after that he was settled. He was going to go down there and there was just no talking him out of it."

"But rescue never came." She says, this new information just fuel to the fire. "The boat, it was all a set up. There were no helicopters. We're still here."

"I know that, and I don't know why – " he shakes his head, "That's not the way it was supposed to happen."

Her blue eyes narrow into little slits. "You ever think that maybe that's all because you're flashes are nothing more than dreams. That maybe you aren't all knowing." Her yells have caught the attention of some of the people closest to them, and he can see Hurley, and Sayid looking at them, the latter looking like he's seconds from getting up and seeing what all the commotion is about. "Did you ever think of that?"

"They are real!" He insists, shouts. They have to be real; he has to believe this hasn't all been for nothing. "You may not believe in them but I know that Charlie died a hero, and he died for you."

"No," she says, voice deathly quiet now, a stark contrast from just seconds ago. "He died for nothing."

The sentence hangs there for a moment, and then with a shake of her head, she turns away and walks back down the beach. It's fine with him, he could barely look at her, the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks, the hatred in her expression. She might never forgive him, and he has to live with that.

Charlie's gone, because of what he saw, and he's got to live with that too.


End file.
